Monthly Archives: September 2017

Listening to the bay of the docks has brought me to a third example, by Belkin, this time in a more traditional silver. This is like previous Belkin iterations, and has a curvy aspect almost all over – it’s in the same case as Belkin’s Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 docks. Four rubberised low-profile feet stop it sliding across your desk.
This also has two practical ports on the front, including a USB 3, but unlike the Kensington, the partner to this is audio stereo minipin rather than another USB-C – dual in-out stereo minipin.
Across the back, this has left to right: Gigabit Ethernet, Audio out, 2x USB 3, 2x Thunderbolt 3 (but not USB-C, note, although they have the same form factor), DisplayPort and the DC power inlet.
Like the Kensington SD5000T, the single USB-C cable that carries all this data and parcels it out through the dock can also carry enough charge (85w) to charge up a MacBook Pro. The cable to connect it to your Mac is supplied (this one a handy 1 metre in length). Of course, this takes up one of the two Thunderbolt 3 ports, leaving only one spare (and three on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, in my case).

I have looked at three USB-C docks recently (click picture to see a bigger file)

Unlike the Kensington and Moshi (left), this can’t as-quickly charge up an iPhone or iPad via USB, but its three USB 3 ports do, of course, support most keyboards, mice, Flash drives and hard drives.
Video-wise, like the Kensington, this support a single 5K display via the DisplayPort or dual displays at up to 4K resolution – on plugged into the other Thunderbolt 3 port with the right adapter, and the other into the DisplayPort.

Speeds — Copying the same 6.05GB movie file I used for the test with the Kensington dock from the very fast internal 1TB SSD in a 2017 MacBook Pro to a USB 3 (traditional, not Solid State) hard drive, took one minute 36 seconds (the Kensington was 1:28). Once again, the real test would be to a USB-C hard drive, unfortunately I don’t have one.

Conclusion — This is another useful configuration for users of MacBooks with USB-C-only ports. It’s a nice shape and the silver goes with some of the MacBook Pros, although I’m guessing the new Space Gray model is the more popular, in which case the Kensington is a better visual match. I’m a little surprised the Belkin is more expensive than the Kensington dock I reviewed last week, since it has one less USB-C port, since this is the way all these devices are headed, but having three (versus the Kensington’s 2) might support people better if they have more legacy USB 3 devices. Being able to charge up to a 15-inch MacBook is a definite plus. But to my eyes, the Kensington, with its possibility of VESA mounting and a lock-slot, is better value. The difference in price is virtually enough to get a decent USB 3 hub if you really need more USB 3 ports. However, Belkin is a very reliable brand too, with a long relationship with Apple.

What’s great — The familiar Belkin look, useful ports

What’s not — Another USB-C port might be handier. Price – it’s possible you may be able to find this cheaper than list after a month or two.

Needs — Anyone with a USB-C Mac right up to the power-sucking 15-inch, especially should you want to use superior Ethernet which is often 3x faster than WiFi.

Moscow is adding facial-recognition technology to its network of 170,000 surveillance cameras across the city in a move to identify criminals and boost security. Since 2012, CCTV recordings have been held for five days after they’re captured, with about 20 million hours of video stored at any one time. This quickly became almost impossible to process by police officers alone, so they’re automating the process.Are, Russia, so security conscious … The ‘secure messaging app’ Telegram has employees in Saint Petersburg in the same building as Kremlin-influenced social network VK, which is owned by the oligarch and Putin ally Alisher Usmanov. Doesn’t that make us feel secure?
Meanwhile, Russian hacktivist group Fancy Bear (also referred to as APT28, Sofacy, and Strontium) has been using a flaw in Google’s caching of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to phish targets, Salon reports. To make matters worse, Google has been aware of the bug for almost a year but has refused to fix it…

Of course, things are much better in the United States of America. The Department of Homeland Security plans to expand the files it collects on immigrants, as well as some citizens, by including more online data – most notably search results and social media information – about each individual. The plan is set out in the Federal Register, where the government publishes forthcoming regulations. A final version is set to go into effect on October 18th.
But here, lax security can be incredibly rewarding. The CEO of Equifax is retiring from the credit reporting bureau with a pay day worth as much as US$90 million – or roughly 63 cents for every customer whose data was potentially exposed in its recent security breach. Nice one, good job there Dick, love your work.Data is the new oil, or so the saying goes.So why are we giving it away for nothing more than ostensibly free email, better movie recommendations and more accurate search results? It’s an important question to ask in a world where the accumulation and scraping of data is worth billions of dollars..

Airlines worldwide were forced to delay flights as a global flight-bookings system operated by Amadeus IT Group SA suffered what the company called a “network issue.” Major carriers including British Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Cathay Pacific Airways and Qantas Airways were among those reportedly impacted by the outage. At least their planes still had fuel.

While we’re back in the analogue world, humans are changing animal migrate routes in ways you may not expect. White storks in Europe typically fly to southern Africa for the winter. Yet when researchers at Germany’s Max Plank Institute for Ornithology tracked a bird’s path using a GPS logger in 2016, they found it and a few others had skipped the grueling migration across the Sahara Desert. That year, the birds stopped, instead, in cities like Madrid, Spain, and Rabat, Morocco. Apparently, they had developed a taste for junk food, in particular the stuff that piles up in landfills along the migration route.

But hey, there’s a new rat, and it’s a biggun! The Solomon Islands is a nation comprised of nearly one thousand islands located northeast of Australia. Dense, lush rainforest blankets the majority of the islands, and the country’s coral reef biodiversity is among the richest in the world. Many of the plants and animals in the Solomon Islands have evolved in splendid isolation, and now, one of these animals has emerged from its idyllic surroundings, revealing itself to science for the first time: the vika (Uromys vika), a big-arse rat four times the size of even the heftiest of the familiar, city-slicker variety.

NASA is going low-tech for an attempt at a usable rover for the inhospitable surface of Venus. It has built in wind turbines that distributes power to the treads

A fourth gravitational wave has been detected — Astronomers have made a new detection of gravitational waves and for the first time have been able to trace the shape of ripples sent through spacetime when black holes collide. The announcement, made at a meeting of the G7 science ministers in Turin, marks the fourth cataclysmic black-hole merger that astronomers have spotted using Ligo, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
The latest detection is the first to have also been picked up by the Virgo detector, located near Pisa, Italy, providing a new layer of detail on the three dimensional pattern of warping that occurs during some of the most violent and energetic events in the universe.~ Can’t think of a smart-arse thing to say about this, so I will leave that up to the researchers: “Overall, the volume of universe that is likely to contain the source shrinks by more than a factor of 20 when moving from a two-detector network to a three-detector network.” So there.

Pluto’s skyscraper ice shards — When NASA’s New Horizons space probe zipped past Pluto in 2015, it revealed portions of the dwarf planet’s surface were strewn with what could only be described as gigantic blades of ice, many of which extended into the Plutonian sky for hundreds of metres. Finally, after nearly two years of research, a team of scientists think they have figured out the nature of these odd features and how they came to appear on the surface.~ I would have picked something to do with temperature …

Low-tech rover destined for Venus — The surface of Venus is, at approximately 450°C (850° Fahrenheit), hot enough for paper to spontaneously combust. Its atmosphere, an oppressive mix of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and sulfur dioxide, is dense enough to crush a submarine. While certainly inhospitable to humans, is almost just as rough for robots. The last time a bot visited the surface of Venus was in the mid-’80s, when the Soviet Union sent its Vega lander to capture data about the planet’s soil. It lasted for less than an hour.
So NASA is going low-tech and is working on a boxy, tank-like bot that rolls around on treads (main picture, above), making it impervious to Venus’ rough terrain. Those treads are powered via a wind turbine that captures the planet’s whipping wind gusts and stores that power inside springs before distributing to the various systems on the rover.~ It’s also using light refectors rather than fragile radio.

Chinese researchers carry out Base Editing to correct mutation — Chinese researchers have taken tissue from a beta-thallasemia patient, created cloned embryos from that patient’s cells, and used a genetic editing technique known as Base Editing to correct the gene mutation that causes beta-thallasemia. The embryos were not implanted in a womb, so no actual babies were created during the procedure.~ “Precise chemical surgery” indeed.

Toyota, Mazda and, ah, Denso collaborate for electric cars —With governments around the world increasingly mandating some percentage of their countries’ car companies’ sales be of electric vehicles, the onus is on those brands to find more efficient and cost-effective ways to develop new models. Toyota is spearheading a new enterprise with the help of Japanese partner Mazda [which gives Ford a look-in, with it’s 33% stake in Mazda] and electronics powerhouse Denso to create standardised technology for EVs that the car brands can share in the future.~ One suggestion: Denso should maybe consider changing its name to Clevero.

Vacuum company Dyson aims to build a radically different electric car — The billionaire who revolutionized the vacuum cleaner said 400 engineers in Wiltshire had been working since 2015 on the £2.5 billion project. Dyson says the car’s electric motor is ready, while two different battery types were under development that he claimed were already more efficient than in existing electric cars. Dyson said consumers would have to “wait and see” what the car would look like.~ Going by Dyson’s other products, the mind boggles. And unlike most of their other products, they’ll hope it doesn’t suck.

Bot armies that build things — At SRI International in Silicon Valley, researchers have developed perhaps the most impressive microbot army yet: the MicroFactory. It’s an ant colony made robotic, with half-millimeter machines zipping around to construct truly impressive structures. It could well be a glimpse at a future where 3-D printers give way to swarms of robots that cooperatively build stronger, more complex structures. The setup of the MicroFactory is fairly straightforward. The foundation is a circuit board that generates a magnetic field. The little robots themselves are magnets~ I will really start to worry when their evolution passes from human direction.

McLaren body armour — Developed by McLaren Applied Technologies for a “client X”, the armour is designed to “help protect vital organs after surgery”. The fully wearable composite shield does the job of the rib cage — protecting vital organs including the heart and the lungs, with the garment providing further protection from unexpected low energy impact.
According to McLaren, it’s designed to conform precisely to the client’s physique and is manufactured from a combination of materials, including carbon, Zylon and Dyneemafibres, as well as “highly-toughened resin”.~ I guess this is really throwing down the Zylon and Dyneemafibre gauntlet to the other supercar companies …

1/ Set separate controls for left and right AirPods in Apple’s iOS 11 — Installing iOS 11 also updates the functionality of connected AirPods, giving users the ability to set separate, customisable controls for each wireless earpiece. Apple’s AirPods are more functional in iOS 11, thanks to new options found in the Settings app.
Open Settings on a connected iPhone or iPad, then choose Bluetooth. Find your AirPods in the list and tap the ‘i’ button to the right while connected. There you’ll find new control options, including the ability to set different controls for the left and right AirPod. For example, the left AirPod could be set to play or pause a track, while the right one could invoke Siri.

2/ Arrange, hide and delete Apple TV apps in tvOS 11 — If you’ve downloaded an app to your Apple TV, but don’t use it any more and are tired of seeing it take up space on the tvOS interface, you can move and hide apps with ease.
On your Siri Remote or Apple TV Remote, hold down the Touch surface until the app starts to jiggle.
To move the app on Siri Remote or Apple TV Remote, swipe left, right, up, or down.
When you’re finished, press the Touch surface or press Select.
Repeat these steps to move other apps.
To delete an app: Highlight the app you want to delete.
Hold down the Touch surface or Select until the app starts to jiggle.
Then press the Play/Pause button and choose Delete or Hide.
Repeat these steps to delete other apps.

3/ Create folders in tvOS 11 — With a fourth or fifth generation Apple TV and tvOS 11, you can create folders in which you can collect similar apps. To create a folder:
Navigate to one app that you want in the folder.
Press down and hold the Siri Remote or Apple Remote to select the app. It will jiggle when selected.
Drag your finger lightly on the trackpad to move the app and hover over a second app that you wish to place in the same folder. A new folder will automatically appear.
Press the trackpad on the Siri or Apple remote to drop it into the newly created folder.
Press the Home button on the Siri Remote to go back to the Home screen in tvOS.

4/ Adjust your Move goal on the fly — Open the Activity app on the Watch itself and press with a little force on the screen shown at left, and you’ll see a couple of new options. Weekly Summary is pretty cool in and of itself, but the choice we need here is Change Move Goal.
Touch that, and you can use the plus and minus buttons to move your calorie target around.
When you’re satisfied, touch “Update,” and your new move goal will be applied. So you can start reaching for the stars! Or reaching for the couch, I guess, depending on which way you adjusted your goal.

5/ Activate the Flashlight Strobe and Red Light Modes — Bring up the control panel as usual by swiping upwards from the bottom of the watch face. Look for the flashlight icon. Tap it. The first pane is the normal flashlight mode. It will pause briefly at low brightness, then change to a higher brightness. Swipe to the left on the watch face to get to the strobe mode. This is useful when you want to be noticed. For example, walking or running in the evening. Swipe one more time to the left to get to the red light mode. This is most useful when you need some light but want to retain your nighttime dark adaption. (Red light doesn’t affect your dark adaption.)
As usual, the three dots at the bottom of the display indicate where you are in the three modes.
The red light mode also has two levels of brightness. Thightfully shows the time of day. To change between two brightness levels in any mode, tap the center of the watch face. To exit, just press the Digital Crown.

FCC chairman urges Apple to activate FM radios in iPhones in light of recent disasters — The chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, has renewed pressure on Apple to turn on the FM radios hidden inside every iPhone, citing how useful that might have been during Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. [What? Then we’d get ‘free streaming music’ – ie, ‘radio’ – on our iPhones, can’t see Apple supporting that! Because …]

Apple Music breaks through to 30 million subscribers —Apple Music has topped 30 million paid subscribers, Apple confirmed on Thursday, supplying background for an interview with executives Jimmy Iovine and Larry Jackson, and Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe.

Monster Park Dino World is a fun introduction to AR on iOS 11 —The game lets you “see” and move dinosaurs with a compatible iDevice’s camera. Using tracking and light detection, you can, for instance, make a tyrannosaurus rex walk around a room and watch pterodactyls fly around (and zoom toward you). You can also open and enter a portal to take a look at the world of dinosaurs, which packs one impressive waterfall.
For US$2.99, it’s a fun way to dip into the AR world of iOS 11. Monster Park – Dino World is available at the Apple App Store. But it won’t work on iPhones before the 6s, so not even the 6. Dang.

Apple publishes white paper explaining usage and security of iPhone X Face ID — Apple has taken steps to educate potential owners of the iPhone X about Face ID ahead of its release on Nov. 3, releasing a white paper alongside a support document that explains how the biometric authentication technology works to keep the user’s data secure. You can read more about Apple’s privacy stance at the Mac Observer.

Inside iOS 11: HomeKit gains multi-person geofencing, conditional triggers —With iOS 11, Apple has enabled more complexity in the triggers for HomeKit scenes and events, making them adaptable to a wider variety of circumstances —such as only turning off the lights in your home when everyone has left.

First look: New Radio app for Apple Watch featuring Beats 1 —Wednesday’s developer preview of watchOS 4.1 provided the first look at a new dedicated Radio app for Apple Watch, allowing users to stream Beats 1, Apple Music stations, and news channels directly to their wrist, without the need for an iPhone.

macOS High Sierra drivers for Nvidia PCI-E video cards are now available for Mac Pro, eGPU

‘Apple community’ pulls in $13M for disaster relief in US, Mexico & Caribbean — The Apple community, including workers and customers, has raised over $13 million for the relief of recent hurricanes hitting the US and the Caribbean, and earthquakes in Mexico, Apple said on Thursday.

macOS High Sierra drivers for Nvidia PCI-E video cards now available for Mac Pro, eGPU — After skipping the assorted High Sierra betas, Nvidia has rolled out drivers for its line of PCI-E graphics cards, all suitable for use in the 5,1 Mac Pro, and in a Thunderbolt 3 external graphics card enclosure.

Declaration of Apple and Bain Capital’s $18B deal for Toshiba’s chip business imminent —Apple has reportedly finished negotiation of its financial arrangement with Bain Capital and other investors, with a possible announcement of terms of the consortium’s deal for Toshiba’s chip foundry to be made public as soon as Thursday.

Apple not only company fighting Google over video, as YouTube is cut from Amazon Echo Show —On Tuesday afternoon, Google withdrew YouTube service from the Echo Show personal video device, and the two companies have issued dueling statements about the matter.

Aurora HDR 2018 for Mac —Today the completely new and redesigned Aurora HDR 2018 for Mac (and Windows) is finally shipping at aurorahdr.com. Aurora HDR brings many options to create perfect HDR photos, from one-click presets and advanced tone-mapping, to layers, noise reduction and powerful luminosity masking controls. Here’s a What’s New video. And the new Aurora HDR 2018 delivers realistic tone-mapping, new tools, and an efficient user interface. US$5 from every Aurora HDR 2018 sale in September will be donated to support people affected by Harvey, Irma & José hurricanes. It’s not cheap though – upgrade for existing users is NZ$82, new it’s NZ$138.

Apple revamps ‘Privacy’ site to sell customers on benefits of tech like encryption & differential privacy — Apple has updated its Privacy minisite, reorganising it to better communicate what the company does to safeguard personal data on its various hardware and software platforms.

Trump’s proposed tax cuts could be a big deal for Apple — Tax cuts proposed by President Trump and the Republicans could be huge for tech companies such as Apple, notes The Mercury News.

B-Eng introduces a drag ’n drop encryption app for the Mac — B-Eng has introduces Data Vault 1.0, a utility for automated encryption and decryption on any Mac. With its dual panel layout files can be dropped on the left panel to encrypt and on the right panel to decrypt. Data Vault requires macOS 10.11 or later and costs NZ$12.99/US$8.99. It’s available at the Mac App Store.

MagBytes 91 is here,with all the news about Apple’s new iPhone 8s, the iPhone X, iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, new Apple TV, new Watch Series 3 and Apple TV, new operating systems for Watch and TV and more.
With a host of handy tips and three new products, this handy PDF reference should make your day.

Super fast bionic glass: iPhone 8 Review — Apple’s latest iPhone 8 is supercharged by its new A11 Bionic chip, which does the heavy lifting for a series of major new camera features as well as making everything faster. It also packs iPad Pro’s True Tone display and Fast Charging, and adds Qi wireless charging through its beautifully glossy rear glass back, built in a familiar shape but with a new steel structure ringed in an aluminum band with precision seams that continue the water and dust resistance of the previous 7 generation.

Super fast, big bionic glass: iPhone 8 Plus Review —The strengthened glass back has multiple layers of colour applied to it, giving it a creamy luster. The Gold version, rather than being the solid, metallic champagne or rose gold color of previous generations, features a back panel with a warm, antique pearl appearance with a subtle dusty pink tone that looks luxurious and stunning in contrast to the coppery-gold frame that rings its sides and the camera lens. It looks spectacular. This is a very long, detailed review, and partly concludes “iPhone 8 delivers a solid upgrade over last year’s iPhone 7, particularly in its advanced camera and a speedy processor that promises to deliver involving new augmented reality apps, utilities and games built upon new ARKit framework. ”

Apple says fix coming for ‘crackling’ iPhone 8 audio —Apple has issued a statement confirming a small number of iPhone 8 handsets suffer from an audio glitch that causes a “crackling” noise during phone calls, saying a fix for the problem is in the works.

Top 5 education AR apps you should know about — Augmented reality is poised to become an important platform thanks to iOS 11. But AR apps can be hard to find, since we’re still in the early stages. Apple does have a new AR Apps category in the App Store, and it’s growing every day. Right now though, the majority of AR apps are games. But another category that can benefit from augmented reality is education. Here are education AR apps noted by the Mac Observer.

D-Link’s HomeKit-compatible Omna 180 Cam HD gets new control features in app update — Accessory maker D-Link has updated its Omna iOS app with all new features for its Omna 180 Cam HD, one of the first internet-connected security cameras to feature Apple HomeKit support. Included in this release is support for event notifications and remote live streaming for users who don’t own a fourth-generation Apple TV or Home Hub-compatible iPad. These tentpole features initially saw release with Omna 180 Cam HD, but required Apple hardware to function.

LIFX Tile Kit boasts highly customizable LED panels with HomeKit support — Smartbulb producer LIFX has introduced another way to light up a room, with the Tile wall panels able to change color into a variety of different light patterns, all of which can be controlled via the company’s companion app or through smarthome frameworks, including Apple’s HomeKit. [Not sure if you all be able to get this in NZ, but you can get the awesome Nanoleaf Auroroa, for example at Auckland’s iStore – this features in today’s MagBytes available shortly and which I will review it fully here soon, too.]

Review: Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular further establishes an emerging computing platform —The Apple Watch Series 3 with cellular takes a major step forward in making Apple’s wrist-worn device its own independent, connected computing platform. Simply put, it’s a must-have for athletes in the Apple ecosystem, and a wearable device worth considering for many other non-fitness use cases.

Cedars-Sinai hospital’s Apple Watch app lets patients find doctors, locate clinics — Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai offers an Apple Watch app said to be one of the first available from a US hospital, allowing enhanced care for patients directly from their wrist.

Twitter pulls buggy app from Apple Watch without announcement — The latest Twitter update for the iPhone also disables its accompanying Apple Watch app, potentially as a temporary measure while the company deals with complaints about crashes.

Inside High Sierra: HEVC promises to keep quality high, file sizes low for videos, photos — Support for HEVC, also known as H.265, was announced at the WWDC Keynote by Apple Senior Vice President Craig Federighi. AppleInsider examines the technology from a user’s standpoint, said to be needed to keep 4K videos down to a manageable size. Cutting back on the processor demand of coding and decoding HEVC video, Apple is implementing hardware acceleration of HEVC in the late 2015 27-inch iMac, the early 2016 MacBook, and the 2016 MacBook Pro and newer.
And here’s another list of apps that won’t work well with High Sierra.
Some users of oder Macs, by the way, report that Hight Sierra makes them faster.

Apple retains top spot as world’s most valuable brand for 5th consecutive year — For the fifth year in a row, Apple fended off the likes of Google, Microsoft and other fast-rising tech titans to be named the most valuable brand in the world, as ranked by global brand consulting firm Interbrand.

Apple’s video execs hunting for ‘big, smart, splashy dramas,’ taking pitches from agencies —Apple executives are focused on finding “big, smart, splashy dramas” for the company’s original video programming, and are both seeing and delivering numerous pitches, according to one report. [I have two to pitch: a zombie pirate vampire bodice ripper, and another in which a lowly tutor makes drugs in a mythical floating-in-space middle ages for hobbits that ride dragons. But I should probably think grander. Taika, you stood on my foot once in football, so you owe me a favour.]

Apple begins hiring for first Thai store in capital of Bangkok — Apple has started hiring for a store in Bangkok, its first in Thailand, adding to a group of upcoming international expansions.

New Carpool Karaoke trailers — Apple Music has released two new trailers for Carpool Karaoke. The first episode is with Chelsea Handler and Blake Shelton, while the second is for Tyrese and Ludacris. The Chelsea Handler and Blake Shelton trailer is a first in that comedian Chelsea Handler doesn’t seem like she can sing. Fortunately for her, Blake Shelton is on The Voice and can maybe teach her. Tyrese and Ludacris’s trailer focuses on songs from the ’90s and looks fun. Both episodes are scheduled for release on Apple Music on October 3rd.

Apple squashes iOS 11 bugs with quick release of iOS 11.0.1 — Just a week after iOS 11 was launched to the public, Apple has quickly followed up with iOS 11.0.1, a small update intended to address bugs and fix various issues with the software. Release notes accompanying iOS 11.0.1 simply state the update “includes bug fixes and improvements for your iPhone or iPad.” [Hope it fixes the speed issues on my iPhone 6; my work iPhone 5 seemed fine, however.]iOS 11 includes a new voice for Siri, as well as the ARKit tools that developers can use to create advanced augmented reality applications. It also boasts a redesigned App Store, and various features like Do Not Disturb While Driving and a revamped Music app.

Apple spends an estimated US$247.51 on iPhone 8 parts, US$288.08 on iPhone 8 Plus —Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly dismissed bill of material estimates as incorrect, but that’s not stopping research firm IHS Markit to share its latest findings with industry analysts. This year, the firm estimates Apple spends US$247.51 on the components that comprise one 4.7-inch iPhone 8 with 64GB of storage.

Apple’s iPhone 8 supports EVS for high-quality audio over LTE —Largely unnoticed in the aftermath of Apple’s iPhone unveiling, the new iPhone 8 lineup now supports the enhanced voice services (EVS) codec, promising higher quality calls over LTE networks that support the feature.

Apple TV 4K teardown demonstrates new cooling system for A10X processor — A disassembly of the new Apple TV 4K shows not only the improved processor in the device, but a completely redesigned cooling solution complete with “serious thermal venting” plus a fan.
Chips inside the device include a Broadcom Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet chip, 3GB of SK Hynix RAM, a custom memory controller, a Murata wi-fi and Bluetooth module, Toshiba flash memory, and a Megachips FisplayPort 1.4 to HDMI 2.0 converter.

Plex News comes to Apple TV, iPhone & iPad with over 190 sources — Making use of its Watchup acquisition, Plex on Tuesday announced a new feature for its media streaming software, Plex News, which assembles a personalised video montage based on a range of global sources. [Build your own video news silo …]

Thirty-three million Apple Watches sold so far — Apple has sold 33 million Apple Watches since the launch of the line over two years ago — and 15 million in the past year, according to estimates from Asymco’s Horace Dediu. The analyst says the unit sales in the past year add up to $4.9 billion in revenue.

Preparation Guide For macOS High Sierra Installation — Here’s everything you need to know before upgrading to macOS (10.13) High Sierra. macOS upgrades usually go fairly smoothly, but it’s always wise to take a methodical approach.
Day One Decision: the first step in this process is to decide if you even want to upgrade on the day High Sierra is released. On the plus side, you’ll be taking advantage of all the security upgrades at the earliest opportunity. On the other hand, it’s often wise to monitor the situation to see if there are any grave issues cropping up.[My advice after upgrading is to always open the Utilities folder i n the Applications folder – or Go menu in the Finder>Utilities – launch Dick Utility, choose the Mac’s internal hard drive on the left, click the First Aid tab, run First Aid, wait for it to finish, restart the Mac. This seems to head off all sorts of potential problems.]
Here’s list of which audio apps are compatible [I notice Avid and Pro Tools aren’t supported, and this policy of slow upgrades is what got me to switch to Logig nearly a decade ago].High Sierra will perform an EFI security check every week. This will compare your Mac’s EFI firmware against a database of known good firmware. Apple will do this to make sure your Mac hasn’t been tampered with.
Some have been disappointed that the new Apple File System (APFS) wouldn’t be implemented on traditional hard drives or Fusion Drives (which is what my iMac has). [From what I understand, High Sierra will work fine on these Macs, it just doesn’t change the file structure … yet.] But there’s good news. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, asserts APFS would be coming to Fusion drives in an upcoming High Sierra update. According to Apple, APFS features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals.

Safari’s Javascript engine much faster, accursed autoplay videos (mostly) killed — While marquee features like APFS have stolen most of the spotlight, Apple has implemented significant improvements to Safari with the goal of making a user’s time with it easier, and less annoying. [So I can start visiting the Macworld accursed autoplay video site again!].
Apple’s Safari applies differential privacy to ferret out problematic websites in macOS High Sierra.

Apple updates iMovie for Mac with HEVC support — Following the release of maOS 10.13 High Sierra on Monday, Apple has updated its consumer level video editing tool, iMovie, with support for High Efficiency Video Encoding, a tentpole video feature introduced alongside the company’s latest hardware and software releases. The latest iMovie for Mac brings the editing app up to speed with macOS High Sierra and iOS 11, both of which rely on HEVC to compress ultra high-resolution video into manageable chunks.

However, Final Cut Pro X is still waiting for H.265 HEVC support —Apple’s newly released macOS 10.13 High Sierra operating system supports H.265 video playback, but users looking to cut HEVC video from iPhone 8 on Final Cut Pro X will have to wait for an update.

Apple updates iBooks Author with wide colour gamut support, easier Photos imports — Apple has issued a free update to iBooks Author, its tool for building interactive e-books viewable on Mac and iOS devices – its first such update since 2016. Images can now make use of the wide color gamut found on recent Macs, iPhones, and iPads, Apple said in iTunes release notes. Apple has also made it possible to import images and videos from Photos via the Media Browser or drag-and-drop, and it has had various speedups. [iBooks Autho 2.6 is not yet available in New Zealand, but I expect it will show up today.]

Shutterfly, Mimeo announce integration with macOS High Sierra’s Photos app — The new Shutterfly extension for Photos allows users to create, customise and purchase Shutterfly photo books without leaving the app. Users can also begin creating a photo book within Photos and then complete it on Shutterfly.com. Users can find and install the Shutterfly extension from within the MacApp Store, or from within Apple Photos for macOS.
Mimeo Photos is a new photo project extension. Itempowers hobbyists and professional photographers to create high quality photobooks, cards and calendars from directly within the Photos app on the Mac. After installing the Mimeo Photos project extension from the Mac App Store, customers can build their projects directly in Photos for macOS.

iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus adoption may be lower than for previous models [so far[ — iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus adoption was lower than previous models over the first three days of availability as customers are apparently waiting for the iPhone X.
During the first weekend of sales, the iPhone 8 grabbed 0.3% of the device market share, while the iPhone 8 Plus accounts for 0.4%., according to data from the Localytics research group. However, keep in mind this data doesn’t represent sales of the newest Apple smartphones, but measures users who have received their phones and have started using apps. [Seems a bit early to be worried if you ask me.]

Netflix app updated for 1080p HDR on iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, forthcoming iPhone X —An update to the iOS Netflix app brings HDR video to Apple’s new crop of phones including the iPhone 8 family and November’s iPhone X, but as of yet, the feature has not been added to the Apple TV version of the app.

Apple switches from Bing to Google as default search platform in Siri, iOS Search, and Mac’s Spotlight — Apple is switching from Microsoft’s Bing to Google’s Google as the default web search provider for Siri, iOS Search, and Spotlight on the Mac, the company announced on Monday.

Apple Watch Series 3 teardown finds slightly bigger battery, few other changes beyond LTE — A teardown of the Apple Watch Series 3 published on Monday found the device is largely similar to the Series 2, but with some redesign work to accommodate LTE technology.

How to make a music playlist in watch OS 4 — You can sync playlists and albums on your Apple Watch using watch OS 4. You can keep one music playlist on your Apple Watch at a time – here’s how. Audiobooks and podcasts aren’t compatible.

Why Apple TV 4K can’t play 4K YouTube videos — Apple TV 4K promises users the ability to view 4K HDR content from a wide range of sources, including Netflix and Apple’s own iTunes Store. However, the streamer is incompatible with one of the world’s largest repositories of free 4K content: YouTube. Apple Insider explains why in this video.

Apple releases macOS 10.13 High Sierra with APFS, Metal 2, new Safari, Photos improvements —High Sierra has arrived for all users [actually, not yet for New Zealand Mac users when I checked at 7am today), and brings the Apple File System to the Mac for the first time , while introducing support for a variety of other standards such as HEVC video, HEIF image encoding, and Apple’s Metal 2 graphics platform supporting technology like external GPUs. Just look in the Mac App store under Updates.
Regarding hardware, Apple has not put any more limits on High Sierra than already existed on Sierra. However, High Sierra is the last version of macOS to support 32-bit apps “without compromises.”
Another new features is a new routine in High Sierra runs automatically weekly and checks the firmware of the Mac that is installed on to check for modifications that may jeopardize the security of the machine.

Apple tops Interbrands again — For five consecutive years, Apple and Google hold the top positions. Apple’s brand value grew by 3% to $184,154 million, as Google’s brand value grew by 6% to $141,703 million. Microsoft jumps into #3, as one of sixteen brands with double-digit percent growth. Following Coca-Cola at #4, sits Amazon, Samsung, Toyota, and Facebook, which breaks into the Top 10 for the first-time at #8. Mercedes-Benz, and IBM round out the Top 10.

Rogue Amoeba celebrating 15th anniversary, having a huge sale — Rogue Amoeba is a company with an odd name and a wonderful purpose — providing award-winning audio tools. The company turns 15 on September 15th, and it’s celebrating with a big sale on everything in the product line.
To start off with, Rogue Amoeba is taking 15% off of every app. Then they’re adding a “savings boost” that can vary from 1.33X to 4X, basically meaning that you’ll actually get to save 20 to 60% on the products.
To get started you just need to point your browser at the sale page [until September 30 only], where you can “scratch off” a virtual ticket for your savings boost percentage (unsurprisingly, mine came in at 1.33X — which is still worth US$9.80 off on Audio Hijack or a whopping US$19.80 off of Loopback.

Stargate Command offers 354 episodes of Stargate Streaming plus Stargate Origins prequel — MGM has launched Stargate Command, an online repository for all things Stargate. With some content is available for free, Stargate Command is primarily a paid streaming service for Stargate Origins and the vast back catalog of Stargate TV shows and movies. The Verge noted there were some 354 episodes and three films available, as well as all manner of behind-the-scenes and other superfan content. Stargate Origins is a ten episode streaming prequel that revisits the discovery of the first Stargate in Egypt in 1928. Access to the paid content at Stargate Command is a one-time fee of US$20, but as of this writing that will take you only to May of 2018. It’s yet another silofication of streaming content, but at least it’s a semi-one-time fee.

iStat Menus 6 Adds Notification Center, Notifications and more — Bjango has announced iStat Menu 6. The new macOS High Sierra-friendly version adds several new features. Notifications are based on CPU, network use, disk, battery, weather and other events. There’s also a new Notification Center widget that gives you a great snapshot view of your Mac’s goings on. There are new colour and theme options, and you can rearrange the order in dropdown menus, too. It’s a solid upgrade. Speaking of which, upgrades from previous versions are US$9.99, while new licenses are US$18. There are family packs available, too.

Apple Mac, iPhone & iPad news for New Zealanders

Mark Webster | Mac NZ

The home of Apple info for New Zealanders. Contact Mark by email for Mac help and advice (click Training at top right). Mac NZ serves daily Apple news from the world of Apple Inc & reviews, tips & advice around Apple & related hardware & software.

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